Sadly, 'Devoted Wife and Mother' Doesn't Have Quite the Same Ring

Jenna, light of my life, fire of my... Oh, wait. Sorry. Didn't see you there. Crying? Who? Me? What makes you think that? Oh, right--the salted tears streaming down my face and falling to the floor beneath my desk, where I lie in the fetal position, silent and still. Those. I guess you've got a point there. For the First Family, this has been a joyous day: 25-year-old daughter Jenna Welch Bush--the blonde one--is now engaged to Henry Hager, 29, son of the Honorable and Mrs. John H. Hager of Richmond, Virginia. But for us members of the American media, today has been as dark as each shot of Jagermeister that Jenna "Hager" will never do. "Devoted wife and mother" doesn't have quite the same ring, sadly, as "brash, boozy, barely legal twin." Nothing gold can stay.

When Jenna arrived at the White House in 2000, after eight earnest, awkward years of Chelsea Clinton, Washington welcomed her with open arms. And that was before the fun began. Within a month, the then 19-year-old UT-Austin student coerced a Secret Service agent into springing a buddy from a Texas slammer after he was arrested for public drunkenness. Then she landed on the cover of the National Enquirer, smoking a cigarette and falling to the floor atop a giggling gal-pal. Then she was cited, in Austin, for underage drinking. Then she tried to sweet-talk a bartender into serving her liquor and, when he refused, fled from her security detail down a back alley, yelling that her father would "have your ass." Then she was arrested after slipping another bartender a fake ID. Then she partied with Diddy. And Chris Cornell of Audioslave. And Ashton Kutcher, who claimed that he witnessed a friend "smoking [pot with] the Bush twins on his hookah." We all knew where such behavior would lead: a pantyless paparazzi picture, a shaved head, a sex tape, a stint in rehab, a Chihuahua. And we rejoiced.

Until today, when our world came crashing down. In truth, the warning signs first appeared long ago. After graduating from college, Jenna took a job in Washington as a public-school teacher. She's since interned with UNICEF in Panama and sold two books--one about her experiences in Latin America, the other a children's book co-authored with her mother--. And false reports of an engagement to Hager have surfaced several times since the pair started dating in 2005. Yawn.

Then again, all may not be lost. Although Hager seems likes a respectable young Republican -- the son of a former tobacco executive and Assistant Secretary of Education who now runs the Virginia GOP, he graduated from Wake Forest before interning for Karl Rove and working at commerce -- you know what they always say: "Women marry their fathers." Which means we've still got a good 25 years of non-stop partying before Hager is elected leader of the free world. If not, there's always the bachelorette party.